Expert answer:Negative consequences could result if parents foll

Answer & Explanation:Write two discussion questions from article. Discussion questions should
neither be too specific (“What does the fourth word on p. 27 mean?”)
nor too general (“Was this a good article? Why or why not?”). Try to
strike a balance between the specific and general. Be sure to point the
reader to the specific content of the article that your question
addresses. Avoid questions with “yes/no” or “either/or” answers; good
discussion questions are open-ended. Also avoid leading questions. See
below for examples of good discussion questions. Example Discussion
Questions: 1. What negative consequences could result if parents followed Bem’s
suggestion to raise androgynous boys and girls? How might peers respond
to boys with stereotypically feminine characteristics and girls with
stereotypically masculine characteristics? What are the positive
consequences of raising androgynous boys and girls? Where does one draw
the line between a healthy de-emphasis on gender and a healthy
acknowledgment of gender in raising children? 2. Josephs, Markus, and Tafarodi argue that individuation
(distinguishing the self from others on the basis of talents or
accomplishments) does not serve as a significant source of esteem for
American women (because of gender-role socialization). How accurately
does their argument describe women in the U.S.? Explain your response.
How do women in the U.S. compare, in terms of how individualistic they
are, to men and women in Asian cultures? How does the pressure that
women feel in our society to be appropriately “feminine” interact with
the individualistic norms that all Americans experience?i want you to write 2 questions from both articles leong_2013_student_critiques_of_article.pdfgranello_2001.pdf
leong_2013_student_critiques_of_article.pdf

granello_2001.pdf

Unformatted Attachment Preview

This article was downloaded by: [American University Library]
On: 26 November 2014, At: 11:10
Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered
office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
Higher Education Research &
Development
Publication details, including instructions for authors and
subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cher20
Thinking critically: a look at students’
critiques of a research article
Ping Alvin Leong
a
a
Language and Communication Centre, School of Humanities and
Social Sciences , Nanyang Technological University , Singapore
Published online: 17 Jun 2013.
To cite this article: Ping Alvin Leong (2013) Thinking critically: a look at students’ critiques
of a research article, Higher Education Research & Development, 32:4, 575-589, DOI:
10.1080/07294360.2012.708322
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2012.708322
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE
Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the
“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,
our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to
the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions
and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,
and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content
should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources
of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,
proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or
howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising
out of the use of the Content.
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any
substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,
systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &
Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/termsand-conditions
Higher Education Research & Development, 2013
Vol. 32, No. 4, 575–589, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2012.708322
Thinking critically: a look at students’ critiques of a research
article
Ping Alvin Leong*
Downloaded by [American University Library] at 11:10 26 November 2014
Language and Communication Centre, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Nanyang
Technological University, Singapore
The ability to reason, analyse and evaluate issues critically is a valued skill and
ranks highly in the list of attributes expected of graduates. Much has been
written about the importance and application of critical thinking in various
domains, but studies on the actual manifestation of such skills in students’
writing have attracted only modest interest. Even less has been written about
critiques in relation to critical thinking. This study sought to investigate the form
and nature of issues raised by 119 second-year biology undergraduates in their
critiques of the introduction section of a research article. The study revealed that
the vast majority of students tended to raise surface issues in their critiques,
focusing on visible textual features such as rhetorical structure and languagerelated issues. The minority who raised depth issues addressed the arguments
used in the reading and their significance. In light of the skewed results, a twostage process – involving (1) summary writing and (2) the use of evaluative
criteria and the Toulmin model as an overarching framework – is recommended
to enhance the teaching of critical thinking within the curriculum. This study
offers a glimpse into the outcomes of critical thinking, as represented by the
students’ critiques. It provides a bottom-up approach to our understanding of the
issues raised by students in a task centred on critical thinking and so focuses our
attention on specific areas for further consideration or remediation.
Keywords: critical thinking; critique; student writing; Toulmin model
Introduction
The notion of critical thinking (CT) has a long and rich tradition. The adjective ‘critical’
in CT is of particular importance. Taken from Latin ‘criticus’, it carries the sense of
‘discerning or discriminating thought characterised by careful analysis and judgment’
(Cooper & Patton, 2010, p. 2). The ability to analyse and evaluate is highly valued
and admired. Indeed, so essential are CT skills at the tertiary level that many universities have instituted various programmes based on CT pedagogy, ‘a guiding educational philosophy for many teachers, academic programs, and educational
institutions throughout much of the Anglo-American world and beyond’ (McGuire,
2007, p. 225).
Many writers are in agreement that CT is best viewed along the lines of a two-stage
process (e.g., Shepelak, Curry-Jackson, & Moore, 1992), as follows:
*Email: alvin.leong@ntu.edu.sg
© 2013 HERDSA
576
P.A. Leong
Downloaded by [American University Library] at 11:10 26 November 2014
The first stage, critical reasoning, requires one to understand a text well enough to assess
it. The second stage, creative reasoning, requires one to create a new, logically defensible
text, whether oral or written, related to the original one. In short, critical thinking means
more than simply comprehending a text well enough to summarise it or agree or disagree
with it. It requires … not merely ‘knowledge-telling’ but ‘knowledge-transforming’.
(Dobson & Feak, 2001, p. 186)
The need to equip students with such skills is an obvious one. Not only are CT
skills desired in the education setting, they are also much sought after by employers.
In a 2010 report released by Hart Research Associates, 81% of the 302 employers surveyed felt that universities should place greater emphasis on CT skills. Such skills, in
fact, were ranked second in the list of desired learning outcomes, only eight percentage
points behind communication skills. The relative importance of CT skills is similarly
reflected in a number of other surveys (Peckham, 2010; Schoeff, 2007; Sennyah,
2008).
The importance of equipping students with CT skills has led to a surge in research
studies on various pedagogies to help students across different educational levels and
settings to develop their ability to reason, analyse and evaluate issues in a thoughtful
and rational manner (e.g., Balcaen, 2010; Halvorsen, 2005; Wang & Woo, 2010).
The theory underlying such studies is social constructivism, where learners are encouraged to be actively involved in their own learning process through interaction with
others and self-reflection (O’Donnell, Reeve, & Smith, 2011). Classroom activities
basically involve two stages. The first, internalisation, occurs when learners are introduced to the basic ideas, or background information, related to the topic of discussion.
This first stage is crucial to CT since it will be extremely difficult for students to form
judgements on issues they know little about. In his work involving Japanese undergraduates, Stapleton (2001) found that content familiarity helped students to include
significantly more arguments, evidence and refutations in their writing as compared
to students writing on an unfamiliar topic.
The second stage, application, occurs when students begin to think more critically
about what they have internalised in the first stage. Balcaen (2010) suggests four principles to guide instructors in the design of application-type activities:
(1) regularly posing questions and designing assignments making concepts and
background knowledge problematic
(2) creating ongoing opportunities to engage in critical and cooperative dialogue –
confer, inquire, debate and critique – that is key to creating a community of critically thoughtful thinkers
(3) employing self- and peer-evaluation as ways of involving students in critical
inquiry
(4) instructor modelling good critical thinking practices. (p. 58)
A survey of the literature reveals numerous suggestions on activities that exhibit these
principles. Halvorsen (2005), for instance, advocates the use of debates, where students
are driven to consider multiple aspects related to the topic, or problem-solving tasks,
where students work in groups to define the problem, examine its causes and
propose workable solutions. In another study, Wang and Woo (2010) report success
in the use of online reflections among lower-secondary Singaporean students as a
means to encourage CT. The students in their study were asked to write reflections
Higher Education Research & Development
577
using weblogs on assigned history-related topics. The researchers found that even the
simplest act of writing an online reflection without any peer or instructor interaction
promoted CT to some extent. They explain:
Downloaded by [American University Library] at 11:10 26 November 2014
It seems that the asynchronous nature of the weblog allows more time for students to
reflect and refer to other resources before they post their writing. Also, the possibility
of a post to be viewed and commented by a large population might make students put
more effort in their thinking and writing. (p. 548)
While these studies have been insightful, few have focused on the expression of CT
in student writing. The need to include this aspect is a crucial one as it offers us a
glimpse into their instinctive tendencies in relation to CT tasks. Such tendencies may
or may not concur with the instructors’ expectations, and it is precisely for this
reason that instructors should be aware of, and sensitive to, these tendencies. This
will help to avoid any discrepancies or, at the very least, prevent them from worsening
over time.
This paper presents the findings of a rhetorical analysis of critiques written by
undergraduates for an assignment centred on CT. Student critiques are particularly
insightful as they require a careful attempt at analysis and evaluation on the part of
the writer and are therefore valuable in highlighting important CT issues from a
student-centred perspective. Further, a search through various databases (e.g., Arts
and Humanities Citation Index, Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts, MLA
International Bibliography) revealed a dearth of CT studies involving student critiques,
which may seem surprising given their potential to inform educators and CT advocates
alike on students’ interpretation of CT tasks.
Specifically, this study explores the form and nature of the issues raised by the students in their critiques and what these imply about their typical approach towards CT
tasks. It is hoped that such a study will serve as a general guide on areas in student
writing that may need particular attention and, crucially, also as a prompt to educators
to design materials and teaching methodologies to help students avoid possible pitfalls
in CT tasks.
Overview of critical thinking
As a term that is used so pervasively, particularly in education, it is perhaps surprising
that a clear definition of CT has remained elusive. Existing descriptions, including the
one presented in the opening paragraph of this paper, tend to be worded in general
terms. At its most rudimentary, CT has been viewed as ‘reasonable, reflective thinking’
(Ennis, 1992, p. 22). This simple description, however, glosses over the myriad aspects
of what can be included under ‘reasonable’ and ‘reflective’ thinking. Ennis (1993) lists
as many as 10 traits that characterise CT. These include the ability to:
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
(7)
judge the credibility of sources
identify conclusions, reasons and assumptions
judge the quality of arguments
develop a position on an issue
ask appropriate questions of clarification
plan experiments and assess methodologies
define terms appropriate for the context
578
P.A. Leong
Downloaded by [American University Library] at 11:10 26 November 2014
(8) keep oneself well informed
(9) remain open-minded to opposing views
(10) draw warranted and balanced conclusions.
In like manner, Facione (2010) regards CT as a set of cognitive skills – interpretation,
analysis, evaluation, inference, explanation and self-regulation (p. 5) – that shape one’s
critical spirit, defined as ‘a probing inquisitiveness, a keenness of mind, a zealous dedication to reason, and a hunger or eagerness for reliable information’ (p. 9). The
approaches undertaken to assess CT have also demonstrated a similar reliance on a
set of interpretive and cognitive skills (e.g., Garrison, 1992; Newman, Webb, &
Cochrane, 1995).
While these diverse skills illustrate the complexity of CT, it remains to be seen how
they are manifested in actual student writing and the extent to which certain aspects
tend to be selected over other aspects. Further, as the labels used in several of the frameworks are worded generally, the specific characteristics pertaining to the corpus may be
obscured. For instance, according to Newman et al. (1995), the raising of important
points or issues is a marker of CT. In the context of student critiques, though, what
form or forms would this take to clearly demonstrate CT? The tendency in many frameworks has been to focus on the arguments or claims raised in the writing. Less emphasis
is placed on the rhetorical structure of the same piece of writing and how that might
affect the reading process and, consequently, the clarity of the points conveyed.
Specific characteristics such as these will go some way to help educators help students
address areas of weakness and build on their strengths.
Methodology
Corpus and participants
The corpus was a collection of critiques written by 119 second-year biology undergraduates enrolled in an academic-writing course at a local university. The demographic details of the students are given in Table 1. The majority were ethnically
Chinese and all students were between 19 and 23 years of age.
The academic-writing course, lasting a semester of 12 weeks, was mandatory for all
science students at the university and was aimed at familiarising them with the conventions of academic writing and equipping them with the skills to write papers appropriate
for academic purposes. Consent was sought from the students to include their critiques
in the study.
One of the skills reinforced during the course was that of critical and logical reasoning. A lecture was dedicated to the topic and students were led to see the importance of
forming arguments and how logical fallacies could be avoided. In face-to-face classes
Table 1.
Demographic details of students.
Ethnicity
Male
Female
Total
Chinese
Malay
Indian
Total
45
3
1
49
59
4
7
70
104
7
8
119
Higher Education Research & Development
Table 2.
579
Rubrics for the critique assignment.
Downloaded by [American University Library] at 11:10 26 November 2014
Task
You are required to write a 350-word critique on the Introduction of the article entitled
‘Introductions in Biomedical Research Articles’ for this assignment.
While reading the article, you may want to use some of the following questions to guide your
thinking and build the foundation for critical inquiry:
• Who is the intended audience? Is the text appropriate for the audience?
• What is the purpose/main point of the article? Is it expressed clearly?
• What research questions are being addressed in the article? Are these specific or too general,
realistic or too ambitious?
• Are the author’s arguments valid or plausible based on the evidence? Why or why not?
• Are there any important assumptions or biases underlying the article?
• Does the research make an original contribution to the field? Why or why not?
• What arguments does the author use to support the main point? Are these arguments clear
and consistent?
• What kind of evidence does the author use to support his arguments? Is there sufficient
evidence for the arguments? How good is the evidence?
• Are the sources upon which this article is based reliable? Are they well integrated and
accurately referenced?
• Is the text well-organized, clear and easy to read?
• Is the language and style appropriate?
during the semester, the students were also actively encouraged to assess and discuss
the strengths and weaknesses of the articles read for that week. As a skill that required
honing, CT did not come easily to some of the students at first. The initial sessions were
somewhat awkward and, for many of the students, there was a heavy reliance on
instructor input. Over the course of the semester, however, many of the students gradually warmed to the practice and the discussions became livelier and more spontaneous.
The critiques written by the students were a graded assignment for the course. The
students were asked to read the introduction section of a research article by Deng and
She (2005), titled ‘Introductions in biomedical research articles’ (hereafter BiomedIntro) and comment on the strengths and weaknesses of the section. The rubrics for
the assignment are given in Table 2. The questions in the rubrics were designed by
the teaching team to offer students some guidance on the range of issues that they
could write on. The students were also given clear instructions on how they should
organise their critiques, as shown in Table 3.
As a short assignment, the students were encouraged to include not more than two
major points in their critique. They were informed that the emphasis of the assignment
was not on the number of points they could raise, but on their ability to substantiate
their points with evidence from the text and argumentation.
Analytical approach
The approach undertaken here is one of ‘discovery’. It seeks to find out what is there in
the critiques. Unlike studies on the assessment of CT using rubrics such as those proposed by Newman et al. (1995), there is no comparable model available to capture the
range of issues raised by students in CT tasks. The only way such a model can be
580
Downloaded by [American University Library] at 11:10 26 November 2014
Table 3.
P.A. Leong
Instructions concerning the structure of the critique.
Structure of the critique
Write your critique in standard essay form as follows:
Introduction: Introduce the article by stating the name of the author, title and source along with
the date of publication. Provide a one- or two-sentence summary of the article and your thesis
statement.
Body: Write 2 or 3 paragraphs to support your thesis statement. Develop these paragraphs based
on your responses to the selected guiding questions. Each body paragraph should include
three elements: your point, evidence from the article and explanation of why the evidence
supports your point.
Conclusion: Summarize your main points, restate your thesis statement and discuss the success
or failure of the author to convince the reader. Indicate the significance/impact of the article.
formed is by looking through the critiques and classifying the issues raised in broad
terms. A pilot run of the analysis was carried out using 10 sample critiques to get a
preliminary sense of the range of issues raised by the students. Owing to the word
limit and the clear instructions provided to the students on the structure of their critiques (see Tables 1 and 2), identifying the key issues raised by the students was a relatively straightforward exercise. This eased the analysis as it allowed these key issues to
be quickly picked out without having to wade through a lengthy or poorly structured
text.
It quickly became apparent that many of the sample critiques focused on surface
issues, concerning primarily: (1) the rhetorical organisation of Biomed-Intro, where
the students compared it with …
Purchase answer to see full
attachment

How it works

1. Paste your instructions in the instructions box. You can also attach an instructions file
2. Select the writer category, deadline, education level and review the instructions 
3. Make a payment for the order to be assignment to a writer
4.  Download the paper after the writer uploads it 

Will the writer plagiarize my essay?

You will get a plagiarism-free paper and you can get an originality report upon request.

Is this service safe?

All the personal information is confidential and we have 100% safe payment methods. We also guarantee good grades